UMP closes social networking website

Social networking has been a flop for President Sarkozy’s UMP party and it is closing its website later this month

PRESIDENT Sarkozy’s political party UMP is to close its social networking site, Créateurs de Possibles, after it proved a massive internet flop.

Set up by former party general secretary Xavier Bertrand at a cost of €500,000 in last January, it was described by people close to new general secretary Jean-François Copé as "still-born”.

Newspaper Le Parisien said the site had failed to spark any reaction from party members or pull in new members, with at best only 15,000 people subscribing, some of them signing up to bait the president.

It will be closed in the next few days.

In the run-up to the 2012 presidential campaign, the party intends to use external agencies for its internet publicity.